Chaos Theory
by MrsTater
Summary: What's a good Catholic girl to do when her husband returns from the future with the winning lottery numbers?


**A/N: I think I'm becoming seriously addicted to writing _The Time Traveler's Wife _fic! This time, we pick up after the third scene of Book II. Concrit is very welcome as I'm still trying to get the hang of writing these characters this style.**

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**Chaos Theory**

_Wednesday, April 13-Thursday, April 14, 1994 (Clare is 22, Henry is 30)_

CLARE: We stand outside Katz's Deli for a long time. Henry and I are like two people at the brink of something so huge and life-altering that I can't, at the moment, wrap my brain around it enough to think of an analogy. Maybe I feel like I'm standing at the threshold of a castle. Or maybe it's more like the gates of hell.

If we go inside Katz's tonight as middle-class Americans, and I hand her the ticket I'm clutching in my fingers, we'll come out again millionaires.

Henry catches my hand as I'm passing the lottery ticket to the other one, as I realize I've been doing since we came to stand here outside the deli.

"Your hands are sweaty, Clare."

"I'm nervous."

"Well stop that. You're going to smear the ink and they won't be able to see our winning numbers."

"That would solve our dilemma, wouldn't it?"

"_Your _dilemma." Henry releases my hand and leans against a nearby newspaper stand. "I don't care one way or the other, remember?"

"I remember," I reply snippily. Henry's always leaving me alone. Of course he'd leave me alone to make a decision of this magnitude.

I stare down at the lottery ticket. Why did Henry have to leave me yesterday, to find out these six numbers? Technically he didn't leave me; he was at work when he time traveled. But still. If he's not going to tell me what to do, then I'll lay all the irrational blame on him I feel like.

"Eight million dollars," I muse, trying to comprehend the enormity of that amount of money represented by six digits. "We buy a sandwich, and we get eight million dollars change."

"Just in time to file our income tax return. If you can make up your mind by midnight, Friday, that is."

At last my frustration at Henry's inability to take my indecision seriously boils over. I whirl to face him. He's leaning one elbow on the newsstand, his other hand hooked in the pocket of his black jeans.

"This isn't a decision I can make lightly! It's one of the Seven Deadly Sins!"

"You don't have to commit Gluttony, you know. We had dinner already. A sandwich really isn't necessary for claiming our money. Minnie'll be so excited she'll forget all about taking our orders."

I roll my eyes and say, through clenched teeth, "Avarice."

"Ah, yes. Avarice. Of course." He removes his hand from his pocket and scratches his head. "Did the Pope say winning the lottery counts as Avarice?"

For no reason at all, I remember Henry telling me when I was six that the Pope was an old meanie. Henry, of course, doesn't remember this, because he hasn't visited my past yet.

"Yes, I think the Pope would say that winning the lottery by traveling into the future to read tomorrow's _Trib_, for the selfish pursuit of money, denying the same goods to others, definitely counts as Avarice."

"But I didn't do it for me," says Henry, sweetly. He pushes off the newsstand and slips his arms around me from behind. He rests his chin on my shoulder, and I see his teasing, yet sincere expression reflected in the deli window. "I did it for you." His breath is warm on my neck as he turns his head to nuzzle my cheek. "And how do you know someone else would've picked the winning numbers if we hadn't?"

The prickle of Henry's day's growth of stubble is almost as tempting as the lure of the eight million dollars. I squirm, and start to move away from him, not wanting to be guilty of Lust on top of Avarice, when I remember we're married now. Not that I haven't been guilty of lusting after Henry many, _many _times before I became Mrs. DeTamble.

I turn my head. We are practically mouth-to-mouth, but I don't kiss him. "Are you saying you already know I turn this in?"

"Well...I know you're not working and we're not hurting. I don't know if that's because we win _this _lottery, or some other lottery. Hey!" He looks as if a lightbulb's flicked on in his head. "Maybe we should wait till it gets up to thirty million. Or fifty!"

"If it gets that high before someone wins it." I have a sinking feeling. "We might get rich from playing the stock market."

Henry leans back from me, his forehead creased in perplexity.

"You told me once," I explain, "that wherever you were coming from, our stocks were booming. Are booming. Whatever."

"Oh." Henry sounds a little amused, and the takes the lottery ticket from me. "Maybe we don't use this at all then."

He seems poised to flick it into a trash can. Heart shuddering, I snatch it back. "It doesn't make any difference, don't you see? Sometime, we're going to cheat to get money. Might as well be the eight million dollar lottery, since we're already damned."

"I thought you gave up Purgatory and hell and all that eternal damnation stuff."

"That's the shitty thing about being Catholic. The guilt never really gives you up."

"But you're going to take that in to Minnie? And buy a sandwich in case some of our winnings were her hard-earned dollars?"

I punch him in the arm, shove the lottery ticket in my pocket, then loop my arm through his and drag him back toward Belle Plaine Avenue and home.

"I think I need to sleep on it."

But I don't sleep. Henry doesn't sleep, either, because I can't stop tossing and turning. When I flop onto my back, sometime after two AM, and heave a sigh, Henry lays a hand on my breast and hooks a leg over me.

"We should have sex," he says, kissing my shoulder. "It'll relax you."

I'm dubious about this, but Henry needs to relax as much as I do, has to get up in a few hours and go to work. The thought flits through my mind that technically he doesn't _have _to; he could quit his job at the Newberry and we could live off the lottery and the stock market and he'd never have to worry about being caught in the stacks in the altogether ever again. Not that he hasn't been caught buck naked in less discreet places.

"Okay," I say.

Henry eagerly (always so enthusiastic in bed, as if we've never done it before) begins to kiss my neck and fondle my breasts. I try to let my mind go and become absorbed in the sensations of Henry making love to me. My thoughts find their way back to the Meadow as they do so often, to my eighteenth birthday when Henry from 2004 made love to me for the first time and nothing existed in the universe but Henry around me and in me and flowing through me as together we soared through the sapphire sky. My younger self would be chagrined at my distraction now.

Even so, the admonishment from Clare of the past doesn't make me any more focused on Henry, even though he's just removed his lips from my nipple to frown at me and say, "Hey. _I'm_ the time traveler in this family. But no fear, I know how to bring you back to the present." Then he burrows down beneath the sheets and the blanket on top of which we made love in the Meadow in 1989, to apply that tongue to the art of cunninlingus, of which he is master and I am, usually, irresistibly his canvas.

At the moment, however, I am preoccupied with the memory a much younger me and a slightly older Henry, teaching me about free will and determinism. I believed in God when I was thirteen, but now I believe in Henry. How could God damn me for something I haven't done yet, but that I will not be able to help doing? The Pope probably has an answer for this, but I think -- want -- there to be some meaning and purpose to a pre-determined life than guilt and damnation. _That _god is a sadist. Henry just wants me to be a better artist.

I still don't like the idea of chaos.

Suddenly I am very aware that Henry has stopped licking my clit. I've been so lost in thought that I don't even know when he stopped. He's sitting up on his knees, the sheets draped over his shoulders in a sad parody of a tent, watching me, waiting for me to come back to him.

"Wow." His face is mostly cast in shadow, but enough light creeps in from the streetlight outside our window that I can make out the slight smile playing at the corners of Henry's mouth. He scratches his head. "I wouldn't have even won the Bronze that time. You didn't make a peep."

"Henry, I'm sorry--" I reach for his hand. Both of his close around it, drawing mine up to his lips. He kisses my knuckles.

"No, I'm sorry. I just want to give you a studio, Clare. A space to spread your wings and fly. I don't want to make you question the meaning of life."

"You didn't. You and I both know the answer's forty-two."

"Yes, but we still don't know the question."

We laugh quietly, as if we're not married yet and he's snuck into my old bedroom at my parents'. I tug at his hands, and Henry's sinewy runner's body stretches out beside me. We lie on our sides, facing each other. He puts his arms around me; his biceps are coiled like tight ropes. I tuck my leg between his and feel the warm, velvety skin of his cock against my thigh.

Poor Henry. I know I've frustrated him tonight, as I did (will?) so many times as a teenager. Why does he put up with me? My heart seems to grow in my chest, like the Grinch. He really loves me. More than his own life.

I push an errand strand of hair off of his forehead a kiss him. "I know you didn't want that. Maybe that's just chaos theory at work. A butterfly flaps its wings and sets off a hurricane."

"You don't believe in chaos."

"I don't know what I believe in. I just know that I want to make my own choices and have my own moral struggles. Even if my future is determined."

Henry relaxes against me, lets out a long breath. I know he worries sometimes that being with him infringes on my free will. I'm glad to have relieved him a little on that score. For now.

"That's good, Clare."

"You know what else is good?"

He looks into my eyes for a long moment, and then a slow, lopsided grin spreads.

"Fellatio?" he asks, hopefully.

I burrow beneath the blankets and take Henry in my mouth to try for my own Olympic medal.

I set a world record.

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The next morning I sit drinking coffee in my back bedroom studio, which seems smaller than ever now that I'm holding a lottery ticket that tells me I'm entitled to eight million dollars and the studio of my dreams. My ideas aren't small anymore; they're non-existent.

If I stay in this studio for another second, I'm going to be guilty of the sin of Sloth.

So I go into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. The _Trib _is lying on the table -- the _Trib_ Henry time-traveled to read yesterday -- open to the real estate page.

"Henry, you bastard."Even though I know he's taunting me, I plop down at the table and pore over the listings of Victorian mansions with gardens and carriage houses where I really could rollerskate if I wanted. Houses that _we can afford _if I claim the lottery but that, if we don't, we could never save enough for in our lifetime. If we're not predestined to break the rules, that is.

I have Envy.

Scowling, I chuck the paper into the trash and then stop (as much as I can mage to in squeaky rubber boots) back into my studio. Or, more accurately, the room where I'm attempting, unsuccessfully, to create art.

I feel a bit like God at the time of Noah in that moment as I take in all that I have made since I married Henry. I want to smash every insignificant maquette, tear into a million pieces every stunted drawing. Take a sledgehammer and knock down the exterior wall to set my paper birds free. (Is this Wrath?)

With a scream of frustration I sink down onto the floor. I'm being unreasonable. A diva. I haven't proven myself worthy of this little studio. Why should Henry violate his principles to buy me a studio that might not make me a better artist? How do I know this studio isn't merely an analogy for having arrived at my own limitations? To sacrifice so much for something so uncertain is Pride.

And then, as I plead guilty to all of the Seven Deadly Sins, something in me unknots.

I get up, look one last time around the room, then walk out, shutting the door behind me with a resolved click.

I call Henry at work and get Matt, who tells me Henry's in the stacks and it'll be a few. I'm twitchy with impatience as I wait for Henry to pick up, hoping Matt will find more than just Henry's abandoned clothes.

"Clare?" Henry sounds out of breath, as if he ran to his office. He's surprised I'm calling, because I never interrupt our work like this. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine! Meet me at Katz's Deli?"

"When?"

"Now."

I change out of my work clothes, in case there are photographers, fix my makeup, grab one of my art books off one of our many crammed bookcases, and am at Katz's in twenty minutes. Henry's managed to beat me there. I'd think he time traveled, except that it took me ten minutes just to find parking. He waves at me from our usual corner booth. As I approach, he watches me with raised eyebrows.

"Are we eating?" he asks as I slide onto the vinyl bench across from him. "Because I ordered the usual."

I sip my Coke through a straw. "We're winning eight million dollars, too."

"Even though the love of money is the root of all evil? What changed your mind?"

"Well, for one thing, I remembered that the first time we met -- meet -- and you explained the time traveling, I told you you should become a pirate. I think cheating to get money is my original sin. Also, this."

I open the book I've brought with me to the page I've marked and push it across the table to Henry.

He looks at a painting of a wheel made up of seven smaller images, like a Medieval comic strip of characters sinning against one another, while around them other people are dying, facing judgment and being sent to heaven or hell.

"What's this?"

"Hieronymous Bosch. _The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things_. I figure if he can make a successful art career out of painting sin and moral failings, then why can't I use them to get my sculpture studio?"

"Do I see a future of walking through a house that features life-sized representation of _Hercules Chasing Avarice from the Temple of the Muses_?"

"You're the one who visits the future. You tell me."

"I never tell." Henry closes the book and holds my hands across the table. "I'm glad you're going ahead with it. I've always wanted to break the rules. You're worth breaking them for."

Minnie brings our food, and as I take a bite of my grilled cheese sandwich, I nonchalantly hand her the lottery ticket. When she's scurried off to call the Illinois Lottery, Henry asks around a mouthful of potato chips, "How'd the lottery make you commit lust?"

"I thought about all those rooms we'll be able to have cunnilingus in."

Henry swallows and grins hugely. "I'm taking the rest of the day off so we can start house hunting _immediately_."

_The End_

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**_A/N: For those kind enough to leave a review, Henry will take the rest of the day off work to spend however you choose..._**


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